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Mosques in Germany

These days, mosques in Germany are as diverse as the Muslim communities they represent. There are those that reflect the architectural tradition of classical Ottoman mosque design, but Germany has in the meantime also become home to several modern and innovative mosques such as those in Penzberg or the Cologne district of Ehrenfeld. Every year on October 3, the mosques operate an open-door policy for interested visitors. But in actual fact, it's possible to visit a mosque at any time.

The construction of a large mosque in the Cologne district of Ehrenfeld triggered years of political and ideological debate on a national level. Public perception of the DITIB's central mosque has in the meantime undergone a transformation.

The first new mosque to be built in the former East Germany was opened in October 2008. The Ahmadiyya Mosque in the Berlin district of Pankow has prayer halls for men and women, each with a capacity for 150 worshippers.

The Omar Mosque, also known as the Khattab Mosque in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg was built in 2008 by the ''Islamic Association for Charitable Projects''. It has four minarets. The prayer hall with its two-storey gallery can hold around 1,000 worship

The prayer hall of the mosque in the upper Bavarian town of Penzberg, which was built in 2006, is bathed in a blue light from the shimmering façade made from thousands of glass fragments.

The Sehitlik Mosque in the Berlin district of Neukölln is located on the site of the old Turkish cemetery, which gives the mosque its name – ''Sehitlik'' means ''martyrs' resting place''. Turkish soldiers who came to Germany in 1914 were buried here.

Two external flights of stairs lead into the magnificent main prayer hall at the Sehitlik Mosque on the Columbiadamm in Neukölln. It can accommodate around 1,000 worshippers.

In a spectacular project, artist Boran Burchhardt redesigned both the minarets of the Centrum Mosque in the Hamburg district of St. Georg in September 2009.

When it was built in 1973, the Fatih Mosque in Bremen was the city-state's first Muslim house of worship. The prayer hall interior was painted by two Chinese and four Turkish artists.

In 1995, arsonists attacked the provisional house of prayer serving Turkish Muslims in the Essen district of Katernberg. The campaign for the construction of a new mosque was supported by many committed members of the public.

In 1999, a mosque was built for the growing Turkish population alongside a former farmhouse in the Munich suburb of Pasing.

The Fatih Mosque in Wülfrath near Dusseldorf was inaugurated in 2003 by the President of the Bundestag at the time, Wolfgang Thierse.

The Merkez Mosque in Duisburg, which was inaugurated in 2008, is one of the largest mosques in Germany. It has the capacity to accommodate 1,200 worshippers beneath its resplendent cupola.

Washing is of central importance to the Muslim prayer ritual. The Yavuz Sultan Selim Mosque in Mannheim has an especially beautiful room for this purpose. The prayer house is an architectural synthesis of old and new.

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